Photo by Ed Delany/MMO
Noah Syndergaard made his first Grapefruit League appearance of 2020 at Clover Park on Wednesday and had a very good outing.
In the first inning, Syndergaard started off his season by getting George Springer to fly out to right field. Syndergaard proceeded to record his first strikeout of the season in the next at-bat against Aledmys Diaz.
After allowing the only hit he gave up all day to Michael Brantley (a single), the Texas-native got Kyle Tucker to ground out to second baseman Luis Guillorme.
Syndergaard’s second inning was even better than his first as he induced two groundouts from Nick Tanielu and Jack Mayfield and struck out Dustin Garneau in between them for a 1-2-3 inning.
In total, Syndergaard only needed 18 pitches (14 strikes) to retire six Astros batters. He allowed only one hit and walked nobody while he struck out two batters.
“I felt great,” Syndergaard said. “I felt like I was back to a competing mentality as opposed to thinking about what parts of my body are doing what on the mound. … Overall, it was a step in the right direction and I just gotta build off that.”
A pitch that went from a weapon to an issue in 2019 was a notable talking point post-game, though, as it seemed to be working on the mound for him Wednesday.
“I did like the slider,” Syndergaard added. “It was close to the velocity I wanted and there were some that I didn’t throw with complete conviction. … I was thinking to myself out there that even if I threw a slider somewhat in that vicinity that I was pretty sure I could get a swing-and-miss on it.”
If Syndergaard can regain control of his slider again, he could very well return to form as a top-tier pitcher in the game this season.
In 2019, the right-hander had a 4.28 ERA, 3.60 FIP, 3.83 xFIP, 1.234 WHIP, and 4.4 fWAR with 9.2 K/9 as compared to 2.3 BB/9.
